3.07.2006

Skip this post if you don't like whining.

I'm sick. Sick sick sick. My throat feels like coarse-grit sandpaper, my lips are cracked in a dozen places, and the crumpled balls of Kleenex around all the bedroom wastepaper basket contain fluid of a striking shade that I call Michelle Williams' Oscar Gown.

I've avoided writing about this for three days because, let's face, it, there is nothing more tedious than a blogger writing about her cold. Especially when there are emaciated celebrities to skewer. But you know what? I'm sick which means I'm the princess and I get to do whatever I want. So poop on you.

Our medicine cabinet is a fun place to explore since we will try anything once and never throw it away. Why we have two unopened tins of Tiger Balm I will never know. My only recollection of how you use that stuff is that in tenth grade, my best friend Rachel and I would get stoned, apply the Tiger Balm to our temples, and go, Coooool...it feels like there's a bullet going through my head! Or something like that.

I won't go through our entire pharmaceutical inventory, but let's just say if you're ever at my place after a run-in with some bad sushi, we've got you covered nine different ways.

Admittedly Nate and I are CVS junkies. I can't send him to the store for Advil without him toting home four other pain relievers, our sixth toenail clipper, two different kinds of cotton balls, and some Cool Ranch Doritos. He's especially assured of bringing home any product with a box that proclaims NEW! Especially if it's got some fancy proprietary technology with a catchy name like time-release or liquigel or flavor crystals. So when I sent him to the store for more Dayquil, I shouldn't have been surprised that he also came home with Zicam Cold and Flu Daytime with NEW! SPOON DOSING! written on the box in bright red letters, so the rubes like us can't miss it.

I love Zicam. It's a zinc spray you shove up your nose and it really does work, but this stuff is different. It's essentially this goopy liquid in prepackaged little spoons, which I can only imagine is for those people too sick to get up and actually pour medicine into the spoon by themselves. Then again, you do have to be well enough to make some tea or soup to stir the stuff into, and then go ahead and drink the whole thing without getting distracted by Bob Barker explaining the next item up for bid. I was not this well. Nor this motivated. So I licked the medicine right off the spoon.

Bad idea. Very bad idea.

I have never in fact licked a dog's ass but if I did, I could pretty much assure you that it would taste better than this stuff.

What's worse, it did not, as promised, provide powerful relief of my sore throat or nasal congestion or runny nose. What it did do is knock me on my ass for two hours when I had work to do. Which begs the question, what is it about this medicine that makes it "daytime" instead of "nighttime?" Less profanity on the packaging?

(Okay, here I think to myself, I have just insured that I will never be approached to pitch the Zicam account. But wait! I could do great ads for it! Zicam Cold and Flu Daytime Formula: Tastes worse than a dog's ass so you know it's working. Or Zicam Cold and Flu Daytime Formula: If you're really that sick you wouldn't be able to taste it anyway, Miss Smartypants.)

But hey, I'm a silver lining kind of gal. I will say there has been one upside to feeling like one of those cartoon pianos fell on my head--it kept me home with my baby, allowing me the great pleasure of witnessing the following:

Not the Gene Simmons impression, the fact that she's standing. My little girl is standing! Maybe it is time to go ahead and lock up that medicine chest after all.

Sister, it is time to lock up everything. A 2ft tall child has the reach of an NBA center, so that stuff you stashed up on top the fridge? Not safe. It's some sort of magic that they don't tell you about at the hospital.

Thanks for all the good wishes, friends. (Or as I sound these days: Dags for all deh good widges, freds)

I am taking every bit of advice here. Especially not biting into the liquigel.

The delightful Mrs F: She's the one who gave me the cold germies to begin with. I've been holding out on you because the only thing more boring than blogging about my cold is blogging about my baby's cold.

Kristen/Christina - Seriously, it's an eror at bloglines. I'm not #11. Something is wrong with their feed because it's like 10x what my sitemeter is telling me. I mean, um...yes, I am NUMBER ELEVEN!!! Lalalala I am WONDERFUL! Wooooooeeeeee!

All right, woman. I am going to have to refrain from wandering off and visiting MOM101 at work. You see, I am NOT ALLOWED to laugh this loud. Just not! People are starting to refer to me as "Giggles." Which is actually quite nicer than what it should be: She who nastily guffaws and spews coffee onto the monitor.

She's standing! That's awesome. My guy just started doing that, too, but I'm not enjoying him doing it in his crib at 4am. Today, he crawled for real for the first time. He went about two feet. I wished I'd had the video camera.

A day of firsts...and you were able to see it. Yay!

And perhaps it will make you feel just a teeny bit better that my Kleenex are also filled with a not-of-nature neon yellow. We're leading parallel lives!

Oh, and here's a tip. When the "Biaxin" is coated with something special to make you swallow it, don't take a morter and pestle to it in hopes of giving a small does to your obviously getting sick baby.

Cause Biaxin is made with the sweat of George bush's balls, after he has ass fucked Cheney. At least that's what I imagine the taste to be like. Right after I said "Oh for Christs sake - it can't taste that bad - I put sugar in it..." then took a big lick to show the child that it wasn't bad.

Awwww, she is STANDING!!!! She is too cute!!! As others have said, lock everything up now! I've gotten lazier with each subsequent kid and walked into the bathroom today to find #3 standing with his hands in the toilet. As I screeched, he looked over, smiled his sweet smile and stuck his fingers in his mouth to suck the pee-water. Don't say I didn't warn you! Feel better soon!

Me Me Me

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